Grasslands of the World.pdf - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

Other grasslands 417
Chapter 11
Other grasslands
INTRODUCTION
As indicated in Chapter 1, this section attempts to cover some of the gaps in the
description of grassland zones and their problems. Summaries of the grassland
and grazing situation in areas not addressed in the main chapters are presented.
The basis of the summaries is the series of Country Pasture Resource Profiles
published by the FAO Grassland and Pasture Crops Group and which provide
basic information about the pasture and forage resources of countries; these
profiles provide more detailed information and extensive bibliographies (see
the Web site
and the CD-ROM “Country Pasture Profiles” (Reynolds, Suttie and Staberg,
2005)); developing countries have been the main focus since this is FAO’s
major zone of interest.
AFRICA
North Africa
This section draws on Pasture Profiles for Algeria (Nedjraoui, 2001), Morocco
(Berkat and Tazi, 2004) and Tunisia (Kayouli, 2000). These North Africa n
countries have large areas of grazed land and many pastoral features in
common, and stretch from 13°E to 12°E and from 19°N to 37°19�N; vast areas
of their southern part is desert . The relief is in two broad categories, the Atlas
and the Sahara. The Atlas are a group of ranges running southwest to northeast
roughly adjacent and parallel to the Mediterranean coastline. South of the
Atlas, a series of steppic plateaux descend to the Sahara, which is a great barrier
between the Mediterranean zone and the tropics.
The northern mountains capture most of the precipitation and agriculture
lands are concentrated in the north; the highest Atlas lands are forest and
summer grazing . The climate is typically Mediterranean, with hot summers
and rain occurring during the cool season. Temperature is governed both by
altitude and the degree of continentality. The region has all the Mediterranean
bioclimates, from perhumid to perarid for bioclimatic levels, and from cold to
hot for temperatures.
Livestock are important throughout the zone and in most farming systems :
sheep are the most important and are the main livestock of the steppe, although
small flocks are kept in most areas for domestic use; several local breeds are
used according to regional adaptation. Cattle are mainly kept in the northern
farming areas and are commonly fed on crop residues , by-products and concentrates;
the traditional breeds were taurins of the Atlas Brown type , but there
are now many crosses with exotic dairy breeds, notable black and white ones.